


Modern Magical America

by Patmos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But I'll warn for them at the beginning of the chapter, I didn't like J.K.'s version of the United States, I do stick to canon as much as possible, Ilvermorny, MACUSA | Magical Congress of the United States of America, Magic School, Magical America, Magical Areas, Other Magical Schools in America, So I took it upon myself to revise it, There may be some tense stories in here, Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-08 12:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patmos/pseuds/Patmos
Summary: This is a series of short stories about students and parents belonging to the magical world living in the United States in the second half of the 20th century and on into the 21st century. Every one of my twenty new wizarding schools will get at least one snapshot of a student, and there will be other stories about magical folks as inspiration strikes. If you'd like to have a look at my notes or contribute to the worldbuilding, let me know.Teaser for the first chapter: The wardrobe only stays open for half an hour everyday. Fifteen minutes in the morning, and fifteen more in the afternoon. That’s how I get to and from school.





	1. Isobel Rivers

**Rikatan House, MI, 1999**

 

The wardrobe only stays open for half an hour everyday. Fifteen minutes in the morning, and fifteen more in the afternoon. That’s how I get to and from school. The wardrobe works like the one in the Narnia books. Going through it really is amazing! They open on the other side any old where -- the archways in the gardens, the janitors’ closets, stable doors, sometimes even the lockers. I like the gardens best, because then I can smell the flowers as I walk to class. Not in the winter, though. The flowers are dormant, but it’s still nice to walk in the snow and the cold morning air.

I’m Isobel Rivers, twelve years old, almost thirteen. They call me new-blood. That means both my parents are normal. Well, they don’t have magic. My grandparents on both sides don’t have it either. I traced my lineage back as far as I could for my history class last year, and as far as I can tell, there’s no magic back for five generations. After that I had trouble finding any details at all, so my history teacher said I’m excessively new-blood. I think that’s a good thing. Apparently wizards and witches have trouble making babies when their bloodlines are too magical. I suppose that makes sense somehow.

Certainly some of my classmates seem… inbred, as papa says. Timothy Argent brags that his magical ancestors can be traced back to Merlin and that his blood is so pure it can turn lead to gold. I say Timothy Argent is a big fathead with a freaky eye and a poorly coached out lisp. And if he insults my raven one more time I’m going to shove his head into dragon fertilizer and hold it there!

I guess Mik, my raven, is a bit odd. Not because he’s a raven; plenty of kids up here on the Lakes have corvids instead of owls. Mik kinda just radiates weirdness. He’s blind in one eye and is missing a toe. He’s got a splash of white on his feathers where someone cursed him before he became my familiar. Papa jokes that Mik stole the wrong wizard’s lunch somewhere. It would be funnier if it wasn’t likely to be true. Mik steals lots of things. I have to return the ones I can figure out the owners of, and it's embarrassing, but I’m getting used to it. He also tends to steal trash, sometimes right out of garbage cans, in full sight of everyone! And it’s no use telling them that he isn’t my bird. He kinda sticks out, ya know.

But for all that he’s sweet, and he doesn’t smell like garbage like some people say. He’s my friend. He was before they told me I was a witch, and I just thought he was a strange bird that followed me around. He’s been with me throughout it all: The introduction to the magical world, the uncertainty over the scholarship, getting used to going to a magical school on an invisible island in the middle of Lake Freaking Michigan. I guess that explains the Lake Michigan Triangle.

He isn’t my only friend. Annabelle Strikes befriended me first week. She’s got a pretty crow for a familiar. I really admire how feminine she is. She’s always got pretty earrings, fashionable clothes, and nice perfumes. I hate to say it, but puberty is being nice to her. She looks more and more like a woman each day, and I’m still a flat stick. I guess it’s good for something, because I made the swim team this year. It’s a great extra-curricular for what I want to major in, which is aquatic species. You know, mermaids and stuff. Annabelle always comes to meets to cheer me on, and afterwards we go to the park and eat the snacks her mom made. The salted pumpkin seeds are the best!

Annabelle’s family is going to throw a huge party in a few months on New Years Eve. I’m invited, but I’m not sure if I want to go. 2000 seems kinda scary, what with my family muttering about all the computers going dead and civilization shutting down. I mean, a lot of wizards and witches aren’t concerned at all, but they don’t use computers. I guess with magic, and doing things the old fashioned way, it wouldn’t effect them much. Still, I don’t mention it to them. There’s a new-blood named K.C. that loves computers and goes on and on about the big crash to old-bloods, trying to warn them. They’ve officially nicknamed him Crazy K.C. So yeah, I’m not stupid enough to make myself a target like that.

Maybe I will go to Annabelle’s party. I wonder if I can bring my parents. If the world does end, then Annabelle’s will probably be the safest place, after all.


	2. Terry Renard

**Montana, 2002**

 

My name is Terry Renard. I’m eleven, I have an older brother, Jesse, and a younger sister, Lizzie. I live on a rural farm in southeastern Montana. Most of our neighbors farm cattle, or wheat, but we’re different. We farm magical plants that are useful in healing potions. Mundane people have plants like ours, but Mom says that those don’t work very well on us witches and wizards. Our plants also don’t work well on muns. I guess it’s cuz we’re magic and they aren’t. There’s gotta be differences, right?

Anyways, that not important. What is important is that I started classes in magic recently. Mr. Craig came by last month to hand deliver the news that I had been accepted to the Andreas Dunman Center. Jesse’s been in magic school for two years already, and it’s my turn now, too. Mom and Pop threw a party just for me! I got to try out the family wands, and my great-great-grandad’s wand chose me. It’s chestnut and unicorn hair, seven and a half inches, and an Ollivander’s all the way from across the Atlantic. None of the family wands chose Jesse two years ago. He got a new one, but I like my wand. It feels good, and I know it has done good things.

School’s fun. They give me everything I need to learn from home, so I can still help out on the farm and learn at my own pace. I already know some household stuff from Mom, but school’s got a lot more interesting things. I like Transfigurations.

Every morning I go out with Jesse bright and early to milk our two cows. Jesse once tried to cheat and milk Betsy with magic and Pop caught him. He got a bit of a swat and a lot of a talkin’ to. He said the milk sours faster if you use magic, so I won’t do that. Then we feed the goats and the pigs. We don’t have many, just enough to support the family and the hire-ons. Lizzie feeds the chickens and gets the eggs. That used to be my job until I got old enough to help with the bigger animals.

Then we go to breakfast, and afterwords Jesse and I start lessons. Each of us has a big clumpy crystal called a Be There. We got headphones this year because there’s two of us. Out of the crystal comes a projection of a classroom and a teacher for each subject. They can hear us and answer questions from all the kids listening in, but they can’t get hands-on. So we write down what questions they need to answer in person, and we take the lessons until noon. We break for two hours cause some kids have more chores. Jesse and I get lunch and help weed the kitchen garden a bit.

After that, there’s a couple more lessons. Sometimes we learn about how magic and farming works together. Sometimes we learn about the lives of other magic folk across the country. After school we play tag on our brooms, or go out to the fields to help pick harvests if there’s any to pick. Everyone helps at harvest, even little Lizzie. Every two weeks Mom gets down our Portkeyrings. Jesse and I each snap a stick, and it takes us to the school center. Teachers review our questions, and we get to play with kids from all over the place.

Mom says that it’s ok if we don’t want to work on the farm after we finish school, or if we want to get boarded at a school farther away after our third year. I think Jesse wants to go somewhere else, but I like the farm. If Jesse doesn’t want it when he grows up and Pop retires, then I do. When I get older, I want to take the more involved lessons on magic and farming.

I like it out here, where the earth stretches out and the sky goes on forever. I like the wind in the hay field while it grows. I like riding my broom out to the Etcherson’s farm and playing with Josie. Most boys and girls my age think the others have cooties, but I like Josie. We’ve been friends since we were crawling. Maybe I’ll marry her someday, I don’t know.

I like the smell of good dirt and growing things. I like making starberry jam with Mom. I like sitting on the fences in spring and watching Pop charm the rocks out of the fields before planting. I like the way the hire-ons tease us kids and sneak us treats. I like being strong and getting stronger as I grow. Maybe this life is stifling for Jesse, but it’s perfect for me. I guess people shouldn’t grow where they’re planted, like some people say, but grow where the dirt serves them best.


	3. Cindel Wilson

**San Francisco, CA, 2013**

 

The mist comes in from the bay, most mornings, but burns off before ten. I like to get up early and watch the dryads that come in with it, invisible to mundane eyes. They dance in the pale morning light, forms leaving little to imagination. Hey, I’m a lesbian and a teenager. I take my guilty pleasures where I can. It isn’t as if I could ever touch them. They’re half spirit, half water.

My name is Cindel Wilson. I’m an only child to a single mom. We’ve lived in the city since I was ten, when mom was sure I was getting into a magic school. Before that we lived up north, in Redding. Mom’s what they call a squib, or a dud. Grandma and Grandpa are both magic, but they were never disappointed by Mom. They raised her just as eccentric as my aunt and uncle.

A common cover for us witches and wizards is to identify as wiccan or pagan. No one bats an eye then, but Mom really embraced it. She does tarot, dousing, and other stuff that mundane witches do. I guess she’s got a little bit of magic somewhere in there, because she’s rather good. Not good enough to make a living off of it, but good enough. She owns her own business, a print-shop. You know, posters, menus, business cards, and invitations. That sort of thing. It supports us.

I’ve been going to Dovetail Academy for nearly five years now. Being fifteen is only slightly less awkward than being fourteen, but some sort of invisible barrier has been crossed now. People expect you to start growing up. I’d rather not, but that’s life.

Soon, breakfast will be ready. I can just start to smell it. French toast and bacon. There’s a big game today after school, so I should pack a bigger lunch than usual. I’m on volunteer duty, welcoming everyone as they pile into the small stadium and pointing out their seats, handing out flyers. I’ll need a snack. 

After breakfast I’ll ride my bike over to Mermaid House, the dorm for girls whose families can’t move closer, foreign students, and kids the state takes over the care of. Citrine is one of those last ones, and my best friend. She’s new-blood and her mundane family kind of flipped when they found out she was a witch. She’s working on reconciling with them, but I think it’s not getting much of anywhere. They’re really, really Christian and she’s not talking about it at all.

I wish I could help her more. She’s such a good person. She tutors the first years, mentors other new-bloods just coming into the school, and volunteers with school events. Her grades are better than mine in everything but Arithmancy. And she’s really pretty. Like, stunning. She’s got the most beautiful bouncy blonde hair, and her eyes are the purest blue, like when you stare at the middle of the sky on a cloudless day. She’s got a pair of emo-framed glasses and they look great on her.

Goddess, I have such a bad crush on her.

I guess I should be grateful she doesn’t have a crush on anyone. If she was in love with Jason Rook like half the girls in the school are, I think I’d die. Or at least be really depressed. I really don’t get the appeal of boys, much less a thick-necked Quodpot jock like Jason. I’m pretty sure the coach gets the other teachers to fudge his grades so he can keep playing. He’ll probably get a team spot right out of school, play for a few years, and retire poor and stupid. I wonder what he’ll do after that.

All right, Cindel, take a deep breath. You’re being smug again, and you know you have to work on that. Feeling morally superior to people isn’t a very attractive feature. Let’s be humble, like Citrine.

I just glanced at my calendar and remembered I have an appointment with my career counselor, Mr. Dag, today. He’s still trying to convince me to go into something other than Enchantment. It’s really annoying. He always encourages the boys to go into Enchantment, but never the girls. If this meeting turns out the same as the others, I’ll report him for misogyny… again.

Maybe I should ask Copper to intimidate the man. Nothing like an angry and scathingly intelligent gryphon to put fear into a coward. And everyone knows Mr. Dag is scared of the gryphon students. Perhaps it’s the sharp, pointy appendages.

I like Copper. He’s not the biggest gryphon his age, being part falcon and part cougar, instead of the huge eagle-lions, but he can fly fast, and he’s great at Arithmancy too. He and I both want to go into Enchantment after we graduate.

Oops. Mom’s calling me down to eat. I gotta go. Wish me luck!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dovetail is my oldest and most detailed school. I first made it when I was in college, about 2002 or so. Initially I made it into an RP forum for my friends to play in, but we got some outsiders, too. Fun times!


	4. Jodie and Jamie Carter

**Lone Star Academy of Spellcraft and Agriculture** **_aka_ ** **Fort Lonesome, TX, 2015**

 

“Can Magic get us to space?”

Jamie asked our Muggle Studies teacher that one day, while she was talking about the moon landing. Jamie’s my twin brother. I’m Jodie. We were both freshmen at Fort Lonesome at the time.

I gotta admit, that was a really good question. Mundanes obviously spent a lot of time on it, making a ship and suits to protect them. And the moon is pretty far away. You couldn’t apparate to it or even take a portkey. I was impressed. Mrs. Fairway couldn’t answer his question, but she didn’t tell us to write a report on it either like she usually did. Naturally, we went right to the library the first chance we got. They’ve got a computer in there, and we knew how to use Google. We’re not completely backwards, like some old-bloods.

Unsurprisingly, Google was not helpful.

Some people think our school is for hicks, but we’ve got all the latest books, including a couple on science and magic. Skimming through didn’t really turn up anything on it, so we checked the books out for a more in depth read. Next Monday, we put in orders for some more books. The next month Mr. Readmore, the librarian, said he didn’t have room in the budget for the sheer magnitude of mundane books we wanted to order. He sent us to the library in Dallas.

Things got slower after that. Even though what one of us reads, the other knows, we were facing a huge wall of science. We had to start at the basics. Mrs. Fairway had to order us to stop turning in science essays and to instead focus on our course material like everyone else. Too bad, we were hooked.

We’re seniors now. We threw a party to celebrate the new Pluto pictures over the summer. We invited everyone from the Magical Applications for Space Society. It’s a worldwide club, and we had guests in from everywhere. We took the opportunity to launch our newest probe. It’s almost entirely run on magic. It’s the first time we’ve sent something so complicated into space. The pictures were stunning.

Oh, we’ve done tests before. The first one was just to see if magic would still work off-planet. There’s speculation that magical energy is tied to the earth and doesn’t work past a certain range. Well, we proved that it still works in the upper atmosphere. We’ve had to test half a dozen newly invented diagnostic spells, not to mention that we’re still inventing ones. Jamie and I have been learning enchantment the last two years because it’s the best way to get things to continuously run even in the event that the spellcaster is incapacitated or dead.

Our mentor, Gary Kinsington, has even managed to mix circuit boards with magic. Ari Yukimuro, a witch in Japan, is working on combining a bunch of tiny spells into one big life support ritual. There’s an Herbologist in the U.K. (working at Hogwarts, no less!) that has been helping us figure out a good system for growing fresh food in space. I think out of everything, the gravity spell has been giving the collective lot of us the most headaches. Mundane scientists aren’t even 100% sure on how gravity works.

Jamie and I are going to mundane science colleges after we graduate Fort Lonesome. There aren’t many of us in MASS that have actual degrees in science. We’ve applied to a whole bunch of them. Jamie is hoping for MIT or Stanford. I haven’t told him yet that I got accepted into both. I’m waiting to see if he gets letters back. A letter from CalTech for him came in today.

Regardless, we’ve agreed we’re going to different schools. We’ve refined the knowledge sharing so that we can have our own private thoughts, but when we’re done, we’ll both have the educations of each school. It’s a scary thought, being without him for years, but when you’re a magical twin, you’re never alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This school was named by one of my creative and funny roommates, London, who has helped me out with several school names, and has been a wonderful idea bouncer.


	5. A moment of silence and noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter includes a fictional first-hand account of 9/11. It may be too tense or even triggering for some people, so I recommend some healthy caution if such talk upsets you. I know that I had some upsettedness even researching it. I remember the day it happened, though I was in California at the time. I woke up to my mother saying "Get up. The world just changed." Writing this, it occurred to me that soon there will be adults in the world that never witnessed it. I hope that the future can continue to heal the past.

**New York City, NY, 2001: A Brief Pause**

 

Time seemed to slow that day. Maybe, for some people, it actually did. I heard later that so many time-turners went missing from the vault that day that they didn’t know how to handle things. I’m sure many people were desperate. I was almost one of those people.

I don’t know if any of those time thieves will ever speak up about what they did, but you could see the ripples weeks and sometimes months later. People who missed those four flights. People that simply weren’t in the towers or even the area that day when they should have been. People who have no idea how they escaped. I wish we could have saved more.

That day I was already awake, getting my kids ready to go in to school at Stander-Jackson. We were running late and I was just about to grab my purse when the apartment shuddered. We had charms on the apartment to cut out outside noise, so I didn’t hear the first crash. The kids hadn’t felt it, so they were still running around like mad. I hushed them, and with a growing sense of unease I went to the sliding door. I pulled back the curtain to see a nightmare.

There aren’t really words to describe what I was feeling when I saw that smoke plume starting to billow out of a daily part of my skyline. I was in shock, I think. Nothing processed. I think that in that moment I could easily have split my mind into several pieces, each wanting to do something different.

I don’t know how long I stood there. Time, indeed, had slowed to a standstill. I only came to when Lilliana pulled on the hem of my dress. I took a deep breath I’d been holding and told them to go to my room. My wand came out and I cast the most powerful protections I could, not only on my apartment, but on as much of the building as I could. I then called our single brownie, Peridot, and asked if she would take care of and guard the kids for a while. She peeked around me at the door to the balcony, blanched, then grew fierce and agreed. I have no doubt she was spinning her own protections as well.

I used to be an auror, before I met Jim and retired to family life. I’m still one in my heart.

I turned on the spot and apparated to one of the magical world’s pop spots in a Greek restaurant bathroom that I thought was close enough. Maria and Gus, the owners of the restaurant, were outside staring with wide eyes. I realized that only a few minutes had passed. I ordered them back inside, to put up strong protections, and to get ready to help a whole bunch of people.

So many mundanes were just standing around staring. I had to remind myself that shock was a powerful thing, and that I had been trained to quick response. A few cops and myself were the only points of motion for as far as I could see. I cleared my throat and turned to the nearest mounted cop. With his help we started getting people out of there, away away. After a minute I ran towards the place I’d be needed most.

I must have been a surreal note for those I passed. A short woman in her late 30’s wearing a dress straight out of a 1950’s homemaker magazine complete with high heels, booking it towards the scary thing armed only with a stick. I got there just as people started evacuating the building, looking alarmed and confused. I directed them away, told them to keep walking until they couldn’t walk anymore. Not many listened, so I ducked into an alley to put on the illusion of an officer, though I may have looked more auror than mundane cop. Still, it did the trick, and people started listening.

That’s when I spotted Max. He was still an auror back then. I opened my mouth to call him when I heard the roar of the second plane.

God, Goddess, and Merlin, I will never get the sound of that second impact out of my head. I knew right then I would hear it in my nightmares for years. The ground shook and glass started to rain down as metal twisted around metal. With a wordless shout, I pointed my wand at that glass. I might have intended levitation or for it to move out of the way, but instead harmless sand and silica rained down on us. People were too busy running now to notice, but Max spotted me.

I know he might have told me to go home, but things were in a whole other league now. I joined him as other aurors popped in around us. And not just aurors, but healers and other helpers. There were only a handful of us, but risk assessment was part of what we do. I looked around and called out to them to turn their attention to the other buildings. Spells started going meant to protect those buildings and all the people in them. I cast an old auror trick at each one to pull all the fire alarms in each. A couple of aurors raced off to do funnels (a spell that encourages common civilians to prefer to go to safer areas). I lost track of time after that. We didn’t even try to be subtle. If someone needed water, we summoned water for them. If someone was panicking, we sang them a spell of calm. If there were injuries, we slapped some dittany on them and got them away.

There were fires and explosions that I barely noticed. Mundane firefighters and cops started swarming the area. And then there were sounds like popcorn popping that I recognized as apparition. Choking and coughing witches and wizards in business wear were apparating out of the buildings. I am sad to say that only a few were holding onto mundane people, but those that were were loaded beyond what I had believed the capacity of apparition was. Some went back in before we could stop them. A few perished, like Reginald Strike -- a very conservative businessman and sometimes politician -- I learned later went back seventeen times to take out as many mundane people as he could. His body was never recovered after the eighteenth time. His portrait hangs in a place of honor in The Magical Congress headquarters now.

Cameron Jones was the first to recognize that the South Tower was going to collapse. And it was going to collapse in a bad way. We had no hope of keeping it upright, but the ten of us that quickly cast a pooled pull had to strain to get it to fall so that it wouldn’t domino other buildings. I remember that was the part I was most scared. I was grimy, exhausted, and I didn’t think I had enough adrenaline left to pull it off. As it came down, we all grabbed the nearest people and apparated away.

Dust and ash were big enemies after that. We each had to cast heavy clear air charms on our faces to keep it out, but I coughed for months after regardless. In the confusion after that collapse I just did what was in front of me. I heard later that another group of witches and wizards, arriving fresh from other cities, kept the North Tower steady for as long as they could, but its collapse and all the deaths inside eventually happened. By that point I’d cast so much I barely had the energy to keep my clear air charm going. I had to find a dust mask.

By noon I had been installed back with Maria and Gus. I don’t know how I got there. I stared at the wall mural of a Mediterranean coastal town for a while. Someone gave me a tall cup of rose lemonade and a vial of Pepper-up. I then stared at those until I remembered that drinking was the correct action I should take. Then I felt alive enough to look at my surroundings.

The restaurant was packed. Mostly with magical folk, but with mundanes too. The latter had that vague, unfocused look that they get when there’s a lot of magic happening that they don’t want to see. A mediwizard was singing a healing song over a mundane firefighter laid out in a corner. There was weeping happening, but I couldn’t tell from whom it was coming from.

I put my head back and gave in to tears. Sorrow swamped me. At that moment I didn’t care about who, or why, or how. I just wanted it to either be over or to not have happened at all. And that’s how Jim, my wonderful husband, found me an hour later.

I’d like to say that something so flashy and horrible was caused by a magical terrorist. I really would have preferred that, because when bad things that are so big happen in the world, it’s usually a dark wizard that does it, and I know how to handle those bastards. After that day the urge to hunt was so strong I could barely sit still. But no, this time it was mundane. Though we investigated to the fullest of our abilities, no magical government could ever prove that magic had been involved on any level. So we had to sit out of it.

Despite that, I think that 9/11 was what really pushed the last of the old ways out. We had cooperated with mundanes on a massive scale and no one had to be obliviated after. No one came hunting us, or asking why we hadn’t done more. I heard that the F.B.I had briefly come to us, calm despite their surprise at our existence, and asked what was up. I don’t know what was said, but they went away with their memories intact. They even kept Homeland Security off us.

I’m back in the Auror offices now. My kids are all big enough to be in school, so my days had started being boring. I sit as captain now, and right next to my nameplate is my Order of Merlin, first class. I'd still trade it in a heartbeat for all those lives.

\- Theodosia McGonagall-Whick


End file.
